Monday, April 30, 2018

Idea Not Original

The Mirror (U.K.) has a story from South Africa, which is experiencing a serious drought. Some there are talking about towing icebergs from Antarctica to Cape Town for their fresh water. They quote salvage master Nick Sloane as follows:
We want to show that if there is no other source to solve the water crisis, we have another idea no one else has thought of yet.
It's not a terrible idea, but Sloane is wrong about it being original. Two times ago when Southern California was in drought, towing icebergs from the Arctic was definitely considered, though eventually other approaches were taken.

For instance, Santa Barbara built a desalination plant to extract potable water from the sea. Other cities tried different kinds of water rationing and recycling.